As I sit here looking at the unfilled potholes outside my home, I can scarcely believe what I witnessed on Wednesday (Oct 31) morning at the hastily assembled Herefordshire Council cabinet meeting. Our cash-strapped council agreed to donate a further £500k for the ultimate benefit of a public company worth £4.5 billion in order to get the Cattle Market Retail Scheme back on the road!
It beggars belief that Herefordshire Council should fall for this last-minute brinksmanship and capitulate further on the price they are to receive for the (once valuable) cattle market site. So desperate are our city fathers to push through this out-dated retail scheme that they will now be receiving only £1m for the virtual freehold of some of the city's most valuable development land.
This latest cabinet decision reinforces the view of many that Herefordshire Council is acting in breach of European Law in so far as they are offering a public subsidy to a private company to the exclusion of others.
Many Herefordians have been seduced in to supporting the scheme by the offer of a new cinema (and there is no reason why that should not be made available) but few realise the extent to which this council is frittering away valuable public assets in order to achieve what could prove to be a costly bonfire of vanities.
STEPHEN KNIGHT
Humber Court
Humber
Herefordshire
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